Cold Case
by Mint-Chocolate-Leaves
Summary: Summary: Alfred Jones is a new detective sent to solve a cold case that was abandoned twelve years ago.; He needs to find out why Arthur Kirkland committed suicide. However, as Alfred gets drawn in further to his case, he finds himself learning that the case never went cold. And that Arthur never actually died. UsUk.
1. Prologue

Summary: _Alfred Jones is a new detective sent to solve a cold case that was abandoned twelve years ago.; He needs to find out why Arthur Kirkland committed suicide. However, as Alfred gets drawn in further to his case, he finds himself learning that the case never went cold. And that Arthur never actually died._

* * *

><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

_Twelve Years Before_

The air was cold against Arthur's tongue, but he remained adamant on catching the snowflakes falling around him. His friends had told him that it would be a breath-taking experience to catch a snowflake, and Arthur... Well he wasn't about to stop trusting his friends.

Even if they didn't trust him.

Arthur knew that his friends weren't really friends - not exactly. Maybe at some point they had been. But not anymore - no, all of his friends had reached the jolly age of eleven and now secondary school had _changed _them. His friends didn't believe in fairies and unicorns like they used to. They didn't believe in **magic **anymore.

His friends didn't believe in magic... But it didn't really matter. It was their own mistake, Arthur knew, because they were missing out on all of the fun. The British boy didn't need those friends anyway. They whispered words like "crazy" and "nutcase" whenever they saw him.

Arthur didn't care about those old friends. Well... He did a little bit, but he liked to pretend he didn't.

He didn't care about them, just like Arthur didn't care about his siblings - or his parents.

They whispered words too. Told him that now that he was eleven he had to throw away his 'imaginary' friends. Arthur let out a sigh as he thought about this, confused as to why everyone seemed to think that his friends weren't real. Sure, the Brit wasn't that sociable, but he wasn't about to lie about having friends. Who did that?

And who were his family to tell him to throw away his friends? Real or not, it was his choice, not theirs.

His mother was constantly whispering the same word to his father, frown lines constantly apparent on her forehead. There was always a frown on her face nowadays, Arthur mused as he tried to catch more snowflakes. Especially as she whispered that word over and over again.

_Schizophrenic. _

Arthur knew that his mother didn't want him to hear the word, but he'd always been a good listener, and well, his mother always whispered as if she was on stage and wanted an entire crowd to hear her.

The snow had always looked so beautiful to Arthur. So pure and innocent.

For a short moment, Arthur wondered what secrets the snow hid. Perhaps one day he would learn those secrets. Learn the secrets of why the snow was so innocent...

None of the snowflakes caught on his tongue. Arthur let out a sigh. Maybe he should try again when the snow was heavier - when the clouds were kinder and shared in bigger proportions.

_Arthur! _

The voice sounded foreign to him - not easily distinguishable. Unheard of... Arthur had never heard the female's voice before in his life.

_Arthur, come to me!_

Arthur frowned. Who was this woman?

_Nothing will be bad. If you come with me, you'll not get judged again. You'll have friends who won't judge you._

Eyes widening, Arthur turned to look in the direction where he'd heard the voice. His heart thumped heavily in his chest - friends! He'd have proper friends if only he was brave enough. Friend's his family would approve of!

The front door to his house opened with a slam, causing him to jump, pulled from his thoughts. His eighteen year old brother, Alastair walked down the steps of the patio. His eyes focused on his brothers.

_Arthur! Quickly now - you're not safe here! You'll never be safe unless you escape!_

Alastair was walking nearer to him. Was it just Arthur's imagination or did the older sibling have a malevolent gleam in his eyes?

"Hey squirt!" Alastair called, noticing his brother's attentive eyes. "What you looking at?"

_Arthur! Please!_

The same voice. Urgent now. Arthur stared at his brother, his feet shuffling backwards as his brother neared.

Arthur turned at the demanding tone he'd heard before.

"Where am I running to?" He asked the air - hoping that somehow the voice would guide him. _The forest. _

Breaking out into a sprint, Arthur headed for the forest. Each step felt like splinters in his feet. Alastair chased after him, an alarmed expression on his face. Arthur's foot caught in a branch as he reached the forest.

His knees crashed to the ground.

Arthur screamed.


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One

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><p>Sometimes Alfred didn't know why he bothered showing up to work. His office building was grey, small and closed in, generally making him feel trapped every time he so much as breathed. He needed more freedom; more space to work in or else he couldn't think.<p>

His brother, Matthew, said that he needed more motivation. But then again, he was a full time chef with an open kitchen to prance around in, so what did he know about space?

Today he didn't mind the building so much. It needed a new paint job, sure, but it was at least familiar and filled with people he liked. Rather, he liked most of them. There was a Cuban detective he'd been paired with in a past case - Carlos Machado - who he didn't quite get along with. Long story short, they'd been on a drugs bust, Alfred had made one tiny joke about Cuban's and now there was enough hatred in Machado's eyes to last a century.

And then there was Alfred's boss, Ivan Braginski. They didn't get along. According to his ex-partner, Braginski didn't tend to like detectives who'd gained their position early in their career. Apparently they hadn't 'earned the responsibility' and they were 'too immature for such a position'.

It was a brilliant job being a detective though, so that was probably why he bothered with work. At 23, he was one of the youngest detectives to ever gain their position. He knew that he'd get the best cases to work through - murders, drug smuggling, manslaughters - it's what he was trained to deal with.

Which was probably why he found himself pissed off when Braginski handed him a suicide case telling him to figure it out. It was a suicide - seriously, what did he have to figure out? The file told him everything that was necessary about the case.

"And it's from fucking twelve years ago Matt!" Alfred complained that evening as he washed the dishes. It was a rule between them, Matthew cooked, Alfred cleaned. "The commie's sending me off on a stupid cold case."

There was a sigh from the kitchen counter where Matthew was typing away on his laptop. "Aren't cold cases those that have no leads?"

Alfred set a plate onto the drying rack. "Exactly! When I said that, the commie just smirked at me. Smirked and told me that I was a good detective and he had high hopes for me with this case."

From behind him, Alfred heard his brother stifle a laugh. While the confrontations Alfred had with his boss were annoying to him, his brother found them amusing. It was irritating, but at the same time, Alfred didn't mind because at least it made his brother smile. Sometimes his older brother wouldn't smile for days so Alfred appreciated when he did.

They were silent for a moment as Matthew tapped letters into his laptop. Alfred unplugged the sink, and washed away the soap suds on his hands with an icy blast of water.

"It's not that far to LittleBridge, probably fifty miles."

Alfred raised an eyebrow, turning to lean on the counter next to his brother. "You really need to adjust your definition of far Mattie."

Matthew shrugged. He turned his laptop around to show his brother the route that he'd found on google maps. At the younger's request, he printed directions to the small village. "How many days are you planning on staying there for?"

Alfred pushed his glasses up the rim of his nose, before running a hand through his hair. "Probably three days tops." He shrugged. "Long enough to investigate the fundamentals, short enough not to die of boredom." Plus, if he stayed for a fair amount of time Braginski would realise how dedicated he was to his work and finally give him a break.

Probably not, but hey, it was nice to have dreams.

"I'm gonna skim through the case papers I've been given in a sec so that I know what I'm up against here," Alfred said after he'd folded the directions up and slipped them into his jacket pocket. "When I'm done, we should have some ice cream or something, I reckon that'd be nice."

Matthew let out a sound that was a mix between a sigh and a laugh. He said, "we literally just finished dinner."

XxXxXxXxColdCasexXxXxXxX

Alfred wasn't expecting anything spectacular to stand out from the case notes, and he was right not to. There was nothing unusual, there were no signs of foul play. It was almost sad how organised the notes were, and how there wasn't even a single mistake present. It looked exactly like the reports he'd written in the past - clear, detailed and straight to the point.

_At 09:04 a.m. on January 16th 2003, Officer F. Bonnefoy and Officer M. Manchem, were dispatched to 213 Harewood Street regarding a suicide. Victoria Kirkland (DOB 15-03-1964) informed the Officers that she had found the body of her son in the garage of her house._

_Kirkland enclosed the following facts:_

_1. Arthur (DOB 27-11-1992) left the house the previous night on the premise that he was staying at the house of a friend. She does not know which friend he was meant to be staying with._

_2. The garage door does not have an automatic lock, and creates noise when being opened. It was not opened again after her husband Michael Kirkland (DOB 01-12-1963) returned from work at the estimated time of 06:15 p.m._

_3. Arthur has schizophrenia and suffers episodes of psychosis. He refuses to take the medicine prescribed (Nozinan Tablets, antipsychotic)_

_4. Arthur is known to suffer hallucinations that put himself at risk._

_._

Alfred sighed to himself, flipping the page over. It would have been nice if the victim's mother had gone into detail about the hallucinations, but he supposed he could ask her when he visited her during his visit to the village. He also wanted to know why the Arthur had refused to take his medication. He scribbled the two questions down into his work notepad and focused his attention back on to the report.

.

_Victoria went into the garage at 08:53 a.m. with the intent of taking the car to the supermarket to buy the groceries. When she opened the garage door, she noticed a puddle of blood near a stack of boxes in the back of the garage. Victoria called out for her husband, and went forwards to assess the scene. Arthur was found lying against one of the boxes, right arm covered in blood and the box of Nozinan Tablets in his left hand._

_A knife was recovered on Arthur's left side, covered in his blood. His fingerprints were verified to be those on the knife. No one entered the garage after Michael's return from work. The family did not hear any unusual sounds the night before._

_._

Writing down a few more questions that he wished to ask Mrs Kirkland, Alfred leaned back in his seat. Maybe the report wasn't a detailed as he'd initially thought. There were some things he just didn't understand. Placing the police report back into the folder, he moved on to the autopsy report, skimming over the less important parts and focusing on the necessary information.

.

**Autopsy Report**

**DECEDENT : Arthur Kirkland**

**Autopsy authorised by: Katyusha Braginski for village of LittleBridge**

**Identified by: fingerprints and dental comparison**

**.**

**PATHOLOGICAL DIAGNOSIS**

**1. Lacerations to right arm**

** a. Multiple lacerations with irregular edges, breaks epidermis and one layer of dermis.**

**2. Toxicity**

** a. Blood carboxyhemoglobin less than 5% saturation**

** b. Blood and vitreous fluid negative for alcohol**

** c. Blood positive for Nozinan**

**CAUSE OF DEATH**

**Overdose of Nozinan tablets exceeding recommended dosage by 250mg**

**.**

**MANNER OF DEATH**

**Suicide**

.

It just didn't make any sense, Alfred thought to himself, massaging his forehead. He'd have to ask Miss Braginski for some input on the case as well. Hopefully she'd remember it and be able to answer one of his questions. He knew that she still worked in the morgue near LittleBridge, having overheard Braginski talking about his sister from time to time.

After the autopsy reports none of the other case notes made Alfred question the Arthur Kirkland's case. The statements weren't suspicious, the school reports of the kid told him nothing more than the fact that Arthur had struggled to make friends. With no more questions forming in his head Alfred quickly finished his reading, planning the following day out in his head.

XxXxXxXxColdCasexXxXxXxX

At seven the following morning, Alfred was woken by the slam of the front door as his brother disembarked off to his private world of spices and sugar. The American groaned slightly, burying his head into his pillow for the best part of nine seconds before pushing past the barrier of sleep into a state of consciousness.

Thirty-six minutes later, he was fully clothed - it would've only taken him thirty minutes, but he hadn't been able to find any goddamned socks - and ready to leave the house. A duffle bag around his shoulder, he shuffled away from the house and out into the crisp autumn morning, ignoring the sudden chill that tickled at his neck.

He threw the bag into the passenger seat of his car. It was a ford, old, beaten and red with multiple scratches that often made Alfred wonder what stories the previous owner could tell at dinner parties. Scratches aside, it was his pride and joy. While his friends had gone through a faze of building their own cars piece by piece, Alfred had settled on simply buying his own second hand from a friend of a family friend.

It hadn't failed him so far, and he continued to hope that it wouldn't fail him anytime in the distant future.

Alfred checked his watch. 07:40. He was set to meet up with one of the citizens of LittleBridge at eleven. Considering the time he had until the meet-up, Alfred didn't think twice about stopping by his local bakery to pick up food for breakfast. And of course pick up some pastries that would act as snacks for the drive. He bought a coffee too, asking for three sugars to be stirred into the latte.

The notebook of questions was on the dashboard when Alfred returned to his car, sipping his coffee and mentally preparing himself for the journey. Settling into his seat, he took a moment to familiarise himself with the questions he wanted to ask before tossing the notebook on top of his bag.

In big red letters at the top of the page he'd left the book open on read the question, _'Was it a hallucination or was it something else?'_ Frankly, Alfred didn't have a clue.

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><p>Additional Notes:<p>

Ah Alfred, get ready for a mystery and a half.

So it's been so long since I've written anything at all fanfiction related, and I'm real sorry. I lost motivation and recently I've been stessed and down. I'm still honestly not at my best, but I'm more motivated to continue this story. For those who read my other fanfics, you might have to wait until I'm inspired to write those again, so I write it properly.

Anyway, feel free to tell me what you think. I'm not that into science, so the autopsy report might be wrong.

I'll update soon everyone.

~Mint.


End file.
